The elephant in the room, and one that - as far as I’m concerned - killed Battlerite. If you consider the man hours and resources that were directed at a game mode that was, in part, an attempt to not only broaden its appeal, but also capitalize on a current trend, it was always a massive risk. Not because Battlerite Royale was bad, in fact, it was an excellent spin on the genre. Unfortunately for Stunlock, they made a catastrophic error by making it standalone. Not only did this split the playerbase, but it was also confusing for new players (which to purchase?), resulting in both games needing vastly different balance, and resources that were likely already stretched, were pulled further. If things couldn't have gone worse, it also "officially" launching alongside Apex Legends, a game which no one anticipated. Had Stunlock kept Battlerite Royale as a seperate game mode within the existing client, it would have kept the community in one place, and housed everyone under a single Steam umbrella. Instead of new players seeing two Battlerites, with a community of 2,000 players in each (and thinking neither game is doing well), they’d have seen one with 4,000, and assumed it was an active, small studio title. Too Late To Address 2’s and 3’sĢv2 should have quickly been abandoned early into Battlerite’s development. Not only did it split the queue, but it also resulted in the perception that Battlerite, as an arena brawler, wasn’t balanced. Inherently, 2v2 wasn’t perfectly placed and while it might have resulted in quicker queues for friends wanting to dive in together, it wasn’t healthy for the competitive image of the game. I regularly spoke to folks who perceived Battlerite to be unbalanced when, as far as I’m concerned, Stunlock are pretty bloody good at nailing it. This largely comes about from the fact I can often hard-carry matches, but also because I only played 3v3. To dive into 3’s, if you’ve only played 2’s, is a culture shock and comes with a steep learning curve. If players were only ever exposed to 3’s, they wouldn’t have known any different and would have had a much greater understanding of Battlerite's meta and balance. Poor Ranking Systemīattlerite’s ranking system never quite sat well with me.
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